We’re Hosting the Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders and Publishers
September 23 in San Francisco. 150 hand-picked leaders. Zero sales booths. Here’s why we built it, and how to request an invitation.
As of August 11, 2026, 57 out of the 150 available tickets remain! Request your invitation here.
An Upscale Alternative To The Big Hotel Conferences
Some large banks send 100+ people to Money 20/20 every year.
Run the math on that.
$3,500 per ticket: $350,000
$700 per round-trip flight: $70,000
Two hotel nights at $250: $50,000
That’s $470,000 before Ubers, dinners, $12 lattes at the Venetian, and a week of lost productivity.
And what does it buy?
A spin at the roulette wheel. Thousands of people in one building, and every attendee hoping to bump into the 5 or 10 who could actually move their business.
Sure, we’ve enjoyed Money 20/20 over the years.
But the value was always proportionate to the work we put in before showing up: scheduling the right meetings, with the right people, weeks in advance. All the curation work falls on you. Skip the prep and you fly home with a pocket full of vendor business cards and 300 unread emails.
We got tired of that.
Carlos Caro spent 10 years on both sides of this channel, first leading partnerships at Credit Karma, then at Caribou. In all that time, he never found an industry event that felt like home. Everything was too big, too broad, or too far from the thing he actually cared about: affiliate marketing for consumer lenders.
So we’re building the event we wish had existed. The anti-big-hotel-conference.
The Affiliate Marketing Summit for Lenders and Publishers goes live on September 23 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, a stunning indoor-outdoor venue a few feet from the Bay.
Here’s what makes it different.
A curated audience of affiliate marketing leaders
We’re capping attendance at 150 and vetting every single guest.
More than 85% of the room will be partnerships leaders at consumer lenders and publishers, the people who collectively steer the $4-6 billion spent in this channel every year. The other 15% must be ecosystem partners that directly add value to lenders and publishers (like credit bureaus, alternative data platforms, and operational vendors).
Every person there is either someone you already know or someone you’ve been trying to meet. One day can replace 5-10 partner visits.
Discussing a unique moment in the industry’s history
SEO is shifting, LLMs are rewriting how consumers find financial products, and the AI era stands to change how lenders and publishers do business together.
Those are the conversations that get buried at Money 20/20 and LeadsCon.
Here, they have 100% of our attention.
A format that acknowledges how busy you are
A state-of-the-industry keynote to open the day. Three moderated debates on the questions people usually dodge on stage, with topics curated from practitioners and both sides given an equal voice. Structured networking, catered breakfast and lunch, and a happy hour by the water to close. No sales booths, no off-topic speeches, no wandering a large casino to find the person you’re not sure will attend your coffee meetup.
Plus, a networking day in Sonoma for leaders that struggle to find unstructured, quality time with partners
And for an adventurous group of 50, the conversation continues on Day 2 at Ridge Vineyards in Sonoma. Day 2 has no official programming: a private shuttle, a long lunch, a wine tasting, century-old vines, and the kind of setting where a two-hour conversation happens on its own.
You’ll be in good company. Leaders from Experian, Credit Karma, Bankrate, Prism Data, LendingTree, Credible, QuinStreet, SoFi, LendingClub, Pagaya, OneMain Financial, Avant, Aven, Happy Money, Upgrade, Atlanticus, LendingPoint, GM Financial, Perpay, Bulldog Media Group, FICO, and Engine by Gen have already registered.
The Summit is invitation only.
If you lead partnerships, growth, or affiliate marketing at a consumer lender or digital publisher, you’re likely a great fit.
Requesting an invitation takes about a minute: submit your name here and you’ll hear from us by the end of the next business day.
A big thank you (!) to our sponsors
We’re grateful to our sponsors Experian, Engine by Gen, Prism Data, Tare.io and the ICS Corporation for helping make this event possible.
We couldn’t be more excited to host this. Hope to see you in San Francisco.
Carlos & Nick
Founders, The Free Toaster
PS: If you have any questions, please email us at info@thefreetoaster.com.